Gun control activists wanted better numbers, and the latest survey handed them something far more uncomfortable. New findings from Georgetown professor William English’s updated National Firearms Survey deepen the case that defensive gun use is more common than critics admit, that so-called “assault weapons” are widely owned, and that gun ownership is spreading across a broader slice of America.
That is exactly why the new results sting. The 2021 version of the survey already rattled the anti-gun crowd by showing large numbers of Americans owning AR-15-style rifles, high-capacity magazines and firearms for self-defense, but critics insisted the data was flawed and overstated the reality.
Instead of folding, English tightened up the design and ran the survey again in 2026. The updated version did not rescue the gun control argument. It made the picture sharper, and for activists, a lot worse.
One of the biggest takeaways is that ownership of AR-15-style rifles is not some fringe habit. The new survey estimates that 26.4 million American adults now own an AR-15 or a similar semiautomatic rifle with a pistol grip, which undercuts the familiar claim that these firearms are rare or outside ordinary lawful use.
High-capacity magazines show the same pattern. The latest data estimates 44.5 million Americans currently own one, and gun owners are now slightly more likely to own one than not. That is a big problem for activists who still rely on the phrase “weapons of war” as if repetition can erase common ownership.
The findings on defensive gun use may be even more awkward for the anti-gun side. English’s original survey estimated that adults use firearms for protection about 1.67 million times a year, and critics mocked that number as unbelievable.
The redesigned survey pushed the estimate higher, not lower. It now places annual defensive gun use at about 2.2 million incidents, with some of the increase tied to reported protection against animal attacks, which makes the real-world picture look even more grounded in lived experience.
That matters because the debate over gun rights often gets flattened into slogans. People who carry and people who keep firearms for protection are not talking about fantasy scenarios, but about the daily reality of crime, danger and the right to respond when trouble shows up fast.
Hellbound and Down 